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November 30, 2015

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the
LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.”
--Jeremiah
29:11-12

All right.
One for the road.

Don’t worry.
We’ll get through the campaign together. Or...part of it at least. So let's go ahead and get bloppy one last time.

November 26, 2015

Full disclosure: I didn’t see the recent Nintendo
Direct live, so I heard about the biggest headline indirectly thanks to my
brother and his phone. He had me guess
who the new Smash Bros. character
was, and my first (and only) guess was Shantae thanks to some rumblings I’d
heard. He didn’t even know who that was,
so he did me a solid and said it was Cloud.
My delayed response? “That’s
impossible.” And for minutes after, “But
why?” repeated with an increasingly
desperate and confused tone.

In all honesty, though? I’m not all that hung up on Cloud coming to Smash Bros. Sure, I can think of other characters who
deserve a spot first, but that’s what the big Smash Ballot was for (wherein I
voted for Wonder Red, because of course I did).
I don’t intend to play as Cloud, since I already have a stable of
characters that’s bursting at the seams; still, his inclusion has made plenty
of people happy. That’s something worth
celebrating -- and indeed, plenty of people have already started
celebrating. Seeing Maximillian goberserk over the reveal was an experience more emotional than all of the David Cage games put
together. Not that that's very difficult.

November 19, 2015

I’ve been thinking about Until Dawn recently, even though -- as of this post -- it’s been more
than a month since I finished it. Part
of the blame is on the recently announced VR installment, Rush of Blood. I don’t know
what to make of that, because I haven’t followed VR developments too closely;
still, the fact that Until Dawn is
seeing more play than a one-off release inspires confidence. It’s new, it’s different, and even if there
are some serious flaws, overall it’s
still a good game. I’m glad it came out,
and I hope it gives Supermassive Games the freedom to branch out.

People are going to have different reasons as to
why they like Until Dawn (thanks to
that pesky thing we call “free will”).
Some wanted horror movie tropes, and got them. Some wanted an adventure in the vein of a
Quantic Dream title -- minus the Quantic Dream -- and got that. But even if people give different reasons, I
have one of my own. I don’t think
anyone’s going to fight me on it, but it might be the reason why the game
succeeds overall, on some basic level.
And beyond that, Until Dawn is
a good reminder of what a game can be, because its makers remembered what a
game could be.

November 16, 2015

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be
received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine
forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at
the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has
faith in Jesus.”

November 12, 2015

Oh wait, what am I saying? It’s always
Super Dynamic Controversy Time. I’m
just taking time out to highlight it because -- well, why not?

Obviously, I’m prone to thinking about video
games, and thinking hard about them. I
want the medium to evolve and reach its full potential, even if the journey to
that ideal form is rough and sluggish.
Certain mindsets and practices aren’t helping, though; big businesses
aren’t always the most eager to explore the art forms, but it’s not as if we
can blame the suits for all of gaming’s ills.
Problems exist on, and are exacerbated by, people on every rung of the
ladder. The sooner everyone understands
that, the better off we’ll all be.
Self-reflection, open-mindedness, et cetera, et cetera.

I’ll come back to that later on. But for now, let’s talk about Metal Gear and gigantic asses. Given sneaking suits of games past, those two
are far from mutually exclusive.

November 5, 2015

Oh man, I am so
qualified to talk about this game, because I think horror movies are dumb.

Well, maybe that’s too strong of a claim. It’s not like I think every movie in the
genre is dumb, or that the genre in its entirety is dumb. But I’ve had some bad experiences in the
past, and not because I got scared out of my gourd. I actually WISH I’d been scared out of my
gourd, because in theory that’s what horror movies are about -- making you
forget that there’s a screen between you and the action, and making you feel
just as vulnerable as the victims du jour.

I’d like to think that horror movies aren’t just vehicles for gore and
murder, because that’s not what horror movies are about. (Nor is it about busting out the baps, but
that’s neither here nor there.) Call me
naïve, but I would have thought that a horror movie that can’t scare is a
terrible horror movie, just like a comedy that can’t amuse is a terrible
comedy. But I got dragged to see The Thing remake, the Friday the 13th remake,
Legion (ostensibly), and sat through
no shortage of offerings on TV. Too many
of them have been a slog, and I’m ready for a change. I’m ready for the good stuff.

That brings me to Until Dawn -- a game that I can’t decide is amazing or awful.

November 2, 2015

If we’re being completely honest here, I’ve never
been in a fight. I count myself lucky
that the closest I’ve ever come to fisticuffs is some guy accidentally hitting
me in the stomach while I zipped up my backpack. Even if fighting is something that’s glorified
-- in games, in movies, in media at large -- it’s not as glamorous as it
sounds. People can get hurt, and I seem
to recall an episode of How I Met Your
Mother where the consequence of a fight was a lawsuit for assault. Moral of the story: don’t get into a
fight. Especially with Marshall. That dude’s crazy.

Hopefully, the closest I’ll get to throwing down
is a round of video games. I’d like to
think that a person can play them without fear of getting punched in the face
(unless they’re having a Mario Party session),
and seeing as how games thrive on virtual conflict, it’s no surprise that
they’re pretty good at it. Slashing up
demons, kicking rival fighters, grappling foes into oblivion, it’s all there. And despite the fact that I put on airs of
wanting higher-class art for the medium, that’s not entirely true; I’m no
stranger to a good
Heavenly Potemkin Buster.

So you know what?
Let’s take time out to talk about combat in video games -- and what
makes it good.